The Dumbest North Korea/”The Interview” Articles You’ll Read This Week

The competition was heavy, but the results are in: the dumbest article you’ll read this week about North Korea, and Seth Rogen’s ugly stain on his sheets The Interview, was published by the web site Business Insider. Second place goes to the Washington Post. Respect, bros.

Psst… Wanna Buy a Copy of “The Interview?” Only $50…

In a piece of turgid so-called journalism, Business Insider states “demand for The Interview has been shooting up among North Koreans. People are willing to pay almost $50 a copy of the movie…” The web site’s sole source for this information is an anti-Kim propaganda site, Free North Korea Radio, an online radio network run by North Korean defectors.

The article mirrors an Op-Ed piece from the Washington Post, which tells us to “Think of the movie as Chernobyl for the digital age. Just as the nuclear catastrophe in the Soviet Union and the dangerously clumsy efforts to hide it exposed the Kremlin’s leadership as inept and morally bankrupt, overseeing a superpower rusting from the inside, so does The Interview risk eroding the myths, fabrications and bluster that keep the Kim dynasty in power.”

Let’s Break This Down

As for the idea that there is any demand for The Interview, let alone a “shooting demand,” within North Korea, one wonders how people there might even have heard of the film. Aren’t we bombarded with constant tales about how information into the country is so tightly controlled, and of how the internet is available to a tiny handful of super-loyal people unlikely to be a fertile audience for an anti-Kim film full of adolescent jokes? And who’s got fifty bucks laying around in North Korea for a movie that if owned could send you to a labor camp for the rest of your life? Do you think the film is available on Betamax or LaserDisc or whatever 1980s format North Korea uses?

For any news outlet to push out such nonsense, especially sourced only to an obvious propaganda site, is just sad.

As for the Washington Post Op-Ed, really? After decades of economic sanctions and international shunning, it’ll be a stupid bro comedy that brings down the Kim dynasty that has held power since 1945? While we are at it, was it really the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that exposed “the Kremlin’s leadership as inept and morally bankrupt?” Chernobyl happened in 1986; it was three full years later that the Berlin Wall came down, not exactly cause and effect. And the ascension to power of Mikhail Gorbachev also had some connection to the changes in the then-Soviet Union, apart from the nuclear mess.

It is just possible the writer of that Op-Ed really doesn’t know what he is talking about. To be fair, maybe Wikipedia was broken the day he wrote his piece.

So Why Publish Such Transparent Crap?

Why publish such transparent crap? Because people want to believe it is true, and the media gives the people what they will pay for.

In the post-Cold War, post-9/11 world where the U.S. flounders for purpose and staggers like an aged fighter who went into the ring one too many times, Americans want black and white villains. They want a nation-state, ruled by a Bond villain, to fight, and if they can’t have one they’ll allow one to be created. Remember how Saddam was portrayed pre-2003 invasion of Iraq?

North Korea represents little threat to the United States (as with Saddam, or Syria’s Assad, or ISIS for that matter.) It is a small, isolated country. Granted, it has a nuke or two that might work, but no way to deliver them. Pakistan, on the Taliban’s doorstep if not in its lap, has a much more robust nuclear arsenal and missiles with which to deliver it. There are any number of “threshold” nations (Iran and Saudi come to mind) that could field nukes very quickly if desired. The U.S. wants nothing from North Korea — other than to be the evil super villain we all love to hate, the fat kid on the playground that is always fair game to bully. After all, other than a little bluster no one takes seriously, he never fights back.

None of this is to say “fair and balanced” reporting on North Korea need tell us the trains run on time or that people are thrilled to be there. There is no doubt that North Korea is a dictatorship, like many that exist and some that the U.S. supports, which abuses its people. But fear-mongering and outright silly reporting accomplishes nothing but the churning of always-ready America jingoism, and distracts from real global issues at hand.

After all, there was a reason circus freak shows were popular, and the phrase “dog and pony show” has an honored place in our vocabulary.

Recent Comments

Rich Bauer said...

1

Black and White and “Red” all over again. The dumbest Interview since Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s review of “Red Dawn”, the dumbest movie that was made in Hollyweird. Then there was the dumb and dumber sequel involving – surprise- NORTH KOREA:

“It’s a provocative and extremely interesting film which depicts the futility of war without underestimating the essential need to maintain the preparedness to fight war.” – Al “I’m in charge” Haig.

“Why publish such transparent crap?” — because the average American does not know that is what it is. After all, it’s in “Business Insider” or WaPo, so it must be true, right?

And “Team America” (the puppet movie) has softened the fertile ground of the American mind. To them, Kim Jung-Il, or -Un, is some kind of bad dude, and, uh, he wants to take our freedom (to watch garbage) from us.

And freedom isn’t free, right? You have to pay a “buck or five” at the cinema to get your dose of Soma. And, we’ll kick his arse if he tries to stop us.

Lisa said:
quote “And “Team America” (the puppet movie) has softened the fertile ground of the American mind.”unquote

“Team America” indeed. Whether this is a coinkydink or not, something is telling me it’s actually an euphumism for the Secret Team….

quote”For the longest time US involvement in the war was coated in fluffy rhetoric about protecting Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion. While this may jive with the cold war paradigm written by its victors, it would be naïve to think America were any less brutal, deceptive or power-hungry than Russia. This “Team America” narrative not only ignores the strategic and economic motives for the proxy conflict, but some of the key players involved have since admitted that covert operations began before the Soviet invasion, suggesting that this was just another immoral international scandal masked in cold war propaganda.”

All I feel after reading that is numbness. ..no, make that nausea. The United States of Depravity is a massive understatement.

On a side note..Peter, you need to do a post on that article. It’s a MUST READ. In fact, this article should be part of every High School history class. Of course..we KNOW the purpose of HS history classes..and it isn’t REAL history.